Book cover musings, v. 3,223

How nerdy is it that I lust after book covers that I can't have?

For instance, I FINALLY got around to buying the new Jeanette Winterson book, The Stone Gods, and I was Googling the book to pull a jpeg of its cover for my sidebar down there, and lo and behold what do I see? A much cooler cover that is probably for the UK version of the book (at right). Bah.

Day 323 — Grizzlies

[for Monday, Nov. 19]



It only took me three years, but I finally made it to a Grizzlies game tonight.

We bought the $5 nosebleed tickets (next cheapest were $18 apiece ... um, as if) and threw a grappling hook over a beam and climbed our way all the way to the top of the Forum.

Even the crappy seats aren't all that bad, though. The Forum isn't that huge. And yet, they can't fill it up. I actually started feeling bad for the Grizzlies when I saw all the empty seats. (It filled up steadily over the course of the game, though, so it wasn't too dismal.) And then I remembered the price levels of the tickets and my pity melted away into absent daydreaming about a better way to sell tickets in Memphis.

(Like, wouldn't it be cool if, on game day, they reduced the price of all the leftover tickets by, hell, $5 or $10, just to see if they could get a packed house in there? It's an imperfect idea, so don't go telling me all the ways it sucks. I was just daydreaming, sheesh.)

And then, as I was leafing through the game booklet, it occurred to me (again, since this thought hit me the other day when a Grizzlies MATA bus passed me) how nice their graphic design is this year. I don't know if they had the tri-color geometric lines thing going last year, but I'm digging it. I think the bear head is a good logo anyway, and the colors are nice (yellow plus two tones of muted blue). But the tri-color lines, dude. Dig. Them.

So, yeah, about the game. Um, it was exciting. There were dunks and layups and free throws and T-shirt cannons! I fantasized about Pau Gasol getting an effing haircut, and squirmed in my seat when I realized how cute Juan Carlos Navarro is. I yelled things ("Get it, Headband!") and kvetched at the children dancing inappropriately during halftime because I am eighty. The Griz won, which my super-sleuthing abilities lead me to believe is something rare and magical.

Man, $5. I'll be back.

Project 365

When I grow up I want to be a book designer

Check out some of these 2007 book cover designs.

I particularly love The Worst Years of Your Life and Small Crimes in an Age of Abundance.

I swear I would read all the books on this list based on their covers alone.

A little Tuesday-afternoon Memphis typography nerdery

Today I took to Madison avenue to get my daily picture, since I had passed by the Camp Electric Company's building a hundred times but had never had time to stop and capture their rather rusty and Spartan sign. Nestled just next door to Camp is Sam Phillips Recording, a legendary entity in music if ever there was one.

Here's the sign on the side of the building that faces Madison:



It's a nifty sign, and mostly pleasing to the eye. You'll recognize the typeface used here as Futura most likely.

I like the lack of capital letters in the first three words, and then the smallcaps in the last two. I dig the completely exaggerated ascenders and descenders (made to look more like music notes, no doubt, hence why the "g" in "recording" actually resembles a "q"). But there's one thing that kind of drives me up a wall about the type in this sign (besides the missing dot over the second "i", which I kind of suspect has fallen over the years: The "a" in "sam."

It's not a true Futura A. Futura's whole reason for existing is its perfect geometric shapes: perfect circles, perfect triangles, etc., which reflected a modern emphasis on bold form and pragmatic function. That a single A could disrupt the consistency of the (almost) perfectly round counters in the sign makes me twitch ... but just a little. That's not to say the sign isn't still a great sign — its quirks makes it endearing; the whole sign looks amateur and hand-cut, which it may very well be (I'm clueless about mid-century sign-making techniques). It's just interesting to wonder why the A got squished. It almost looks like an issue of horizontal space, but it looks like that could have been resolved other ways.

Also, on closer inspection, the S form looks a little wider than the true Futura S, which is actually a very slender letterform. So, anyone know the history of this sign?

UPDATE: Slate has some interesting type wonkery up today.

Midnight madness*

I just took the first of the last three sips of this glass of Italian skunkwine (can someone translate my mixed terminology, please?) and I caught a glimpse of an avalanche of sediment tumbling from the little reservoir atop the glass's stem. Ew.

Today I spent the day looking at pictures of dead dogs. Believe it or not, it's a project I'm working on at work. And it's pretty sad. Pit bulls bred for meanness in the inner-city, where quarters are tight, and the havoc those dogs can wreak on a community. Apparently there's a whole subculture of pit-bull worship/exploitation I've not been privy to. Rap videos apparently feature pit bulls fighting, and tattoo parlors around Memphis stain patrons' skin with likenesses of pit bulls at an alarming rate: Dozens of times more than German shepherds or poodles or any other breed.

The local animal authorities are pretty much in the business of euthanizing pit bulls; the city has a no-keep policy at the shelters. Three days and no owner to claim you? A dose of potassium chloride (I imagine; maybe not) and a trip to the incinerator later, and we're on to catching the other six pups in your litter who are probably roaming around town, snapping at people.

Brutal stuff. My eyes got a little prickly while reading the story.

I hope my design can do the whole package justice (dumb and fruity as that sounds).

If all goes according to plan (meaning my first round of ideas don't suck so thoroughly that I am ordered back to the drawing board), this thing should print and ship with the March 4 edition.

But, of course, I'm afraid that what I've offered up to my art director falls short of what she was looking for. I spent an entire day immersed in this story and its imagery, and still I feel like I have managed to completely miss the mark with my approach at presenting the story.

But maybe I haven't missed entirely. Maybe I'm right on the mark, or close.

You just never know. That's the excitement/anxiety that comes with a "creative" job. The success of everything you do depends on the opinions of other people. Nothing is objective. I can put things on a page that make me happy and reference, even slightly, things in my life that make me smile, but other people might never get those visual references and jokes. So you just hope that you at least construct a solid foundation of elements that harmonize and, at some gut level, make sense. I'm not sure I can explain it any better because that's the extent to which I understand design. As much as I like to believe I can plan for a design, there is always that impulsive part of it that comes from a particular day's very specific breath.

*The only reason I'm posting this is because I'm teaching myself (finally!) how to use iMovie, and it's taking longer than I figured to transfer files. And I can't just sit and wait; I have to be MOVING AT ALL TIMES. And that means BLOGGING WHILE BORED, the worst kind of blogging there is, period.

Sometimes I really like my job

Like when I get to put Stephen Colbert's face on the front page. I mean, I always like my job, but everyone who works any type of job knows that sometimes there are little nuggets of nothingness that might seem meaningless to everyone else but, with careful attention, can be polished and kept and treasured.

And putting Stephen Colbert on the front page is something I can treasure. Cuz I'm a freak.

So, yeah. Not sure when Steve Cohen's interview will air. But it should be a hoot. Full story here.